Background

Most Fedora events should be self-hosting and capable of being led by non-subject matter experts. This SOP sets forth how to arrange and lead a Blocker Bug Meeting.

These meetings are a part of the QA:SOP_blocker_bug_process and the QA:SOP_nth_bug_process, and their purpose is to review proposed blocker and nice-to-have bugs and decide whether to accept them, and to monitor the progress of fixing existing accepted blocker and nice-to-have bugs.

Proactive review and handling of blocker bug lists is the one of the best ways to make sure our releases ship as closely on time as possible.

Blocker Bug Meetings are not owned by any one team in Fedora. They are a collaborative effort between Release Engineering, Quality Assurance, Development, and Project Management.

Meeting Setup

Announcement

Announce the Blocker Bug Meeting. Include the following important information in the announcement:

Meeting time in the format: 16:00 UTC (12:00 EDT, 17:00 CET). To help participants convert UTC to their local time, the following text can be used.

To convert UTC to your local time, take a look at
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Infrastructure/UTCHowto
or run:
date -d '2010-03-19 16:00 UTC'

Reminders

Requesting Status Before The Meeting

The meeting is most productive when we have the latest information to work with. Often this requires specifically requesting more information in the bug. Review each of the open blocker bugs and review the comments to see if the bug is progressing.

If the bug does not appear to be making progress, request more information. Here are some examples text that might help solicit information:

Set the bug to needinfo-assignee ...

Please help us save time at this week's Fedora 15 Alpha Blocker Bug review
meeting by adding your comments on the assessment of this bug. If this bug is
still unresolved by Friday, July 23, 2010, we would appreciate your attendance
at the Fedora 15 Alpha blocker meeting on freenode in the #fedora-bugzappers
channel at 16:00 UTC.
The following information would be very helpful to have prior to Friday:
a) whether you believe it is truly a blocker bug
b) what additional information you need to troubleshoot or fix this bug
c) When you estimate having a fix ready
Thank you,
your name

Set the bug to needinfo-reporter

Dear Bug Reporter,
This blocker bug has been marked as fixed. If possible could you verify that
this problem is in fact fixed in the latest build? Your help in completing
this task and adding a comment to this bug prior to the next Fedora 15 Alpha
Blocker meeting on Friday, July 23, 2010, would be most appreciated.
Thank you,
your name

In Action

Introduction

Join #fedora-bugzappers on irc.freenode.net and get the meeting started. Use the meetbot commands below to help capture minutes direct the flow of the meeting.

The meeting leader should start the meeting using the following meeting functions:

#startmeeting FXX-blocker-review

#meetingname FXX-blocker-review

#topic Introduction

The meeting leader should provide the following information at the start of the meeting:

The group then agrees whether the bug is still accepted as a blocker; if not, whether it is downgraded to target or dropped from the list entirely. This decision should be based on the Release Criteria for the release in question

Use plenty of #info ... tags to record additional notes on the bug

After discussion, the leader will seek feedback on a proposed action proposed #agreed 123456 - accepted|rejected as a release blocker

The group then considers the status of work on fixing each blocker bug. It should be clear who currently has responsibility for each blocker bug and what the next required action is on each bug

#action tester - Will attempt to reproduce the issue reported in 123456

#action developer - Expects to have a patch available for testing later today

The meeting leader should summarize the discussion with #agreed and #info before moving on to the next bug. If specific action beyond the immediate update of the bug report is needed, it should be noted with a #action item before moving on.

#agreed 123456 - accepted|rejected as a release blocker

Lastly, as directed in the QA:SOP_blocker_bug_process, the bug secretary should update the bug report comments and whiteboard fields as appropriate

If the bug is agreed to be a blocker, add the text AcceptedBlocker (with that exact spelling and case) to the Whiteboard field

If the bug is agreed to not be a blocker, add the text RejectedBlocker (with that exact spelling and case) to the Whiteboard field

Need more time?Sometimes it is difficult to reach consensus on whether a bug should block a particular milestone. Given that there may be many bugs to review, it is recommended that no more than 5 minutes be spent reviewing a bug. If additional time is needed, note who has the action items to follow-up on the issue after the meeting, and move on to the next bug in the list.

Review Nice-to-have Bugs

Using the same procedure outlined above, review the nice-to-have bugs, and if time / motivation remain, review the untested AcceptedBlocker bugs.

Review CLOSED, but not VERIFIED Blocker Bugs

If time and energy remain, the meeting leader may quickly review the list of previously AcceptedBlocker bugs that have been CLOSED, but were notVERIFIED. This is intended as a quick review to highlight any critical bugs where additional testing is desired. Use the queries below to find applicable bugs.

Open discussion

While the meeting can run long, if time remains, it is nice to open up the meeting for any feedback or bugs not already discussed.

#topic Open Discussion <your bugs here>

Tear Down

Finally, after the list of bugs has been reviewed, identify who is responsible for the #Tear_Down process. Typically, this is the meeting leader's responsibility, but it doesn't hurt to clearly identify who will be

Confirm the next meeting time and date

#info Next meeting time - XX:XX UTC on $date

Thank participants, and close the meeting

#endmeeting

Send a summary of the meeting's findings and action items to test-announce@lists.fedoraproject.org. As part of the email include information about the date and time of the next meeting.